After years of agonized media commentary about the failure of key players in Washington to sit down and work out their differences, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to win the fight over the government shutdown by rejecting all compromise, calling his opponents names and escaping blame in the press.

Eric Cantor, do not try this at home. It is a gambit available only to a Democrat who is presumed, almost by definition, to be free of any responsibility for a shutdown. Reid could attack John Boehner with his bare hands and it would barely budge the narrative of his role as one of the outraged innocents in this story.